


Vodka

by mmacy



Category: Madam Secretary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 06:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30017445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmacy/pseuds/mmacy
Summary: A bit of poker (and vodka) never hurts. Showing you mine...
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Vodka

He wets the pad of his thumb before he begins dealing out the cards.

He knows what she needs before she needs it, but unfortunately, there was only so much he could do, _they_ could do, forty thousand feet in the air. She hadn’t had this tough of a day, that bad of a meeting, in nearly two years, and now, halfway over the Atlantic, she was needing a distraction when all the usual ones he had up his sleeve didn’t seem to be doing the job.

When he’d first noticed the way her breathing had gone uneven, the way her chest looked tight, the way she was glaring down at the table, he’d pulled Nadine to the back of the cabin.

“We need to do something fast, or we could be looking at a real hiccup in the schedule,” he whispers.

“How bad?” She asks as she glances over to the Secretary.

She’d been on the phone with Russell Jackson, discussing the meeting that had led them to where they were now, for the last hour, causing her to miss the gradual breakdown of the Secretary’s mental health.

“Bad enough to wipe her out for the rest of the evening,” he says. “She can’t miss this dinner, Nadine.”

She looks back to him, and— “Have you tried—”

“I’ve tried everything,” he tells her.

She’s quiet for a moment, seeming to think before— “Even a bit of vodka?”

His lips part to answer, but the words die on his lips, and he makes a face.

“Well—” he begins. “First of all, you know she doesn’t like to drink alone.”

“Hmm,” she hums. “Follow me,” she tells him.

And he’s a pace behind her as she pushes back the curtain.

“I have an idea,” she mumbles as she crosses to the kitchenette. 

He wonders where this is going.

“One that involves vodka?”

He watches as she leans down and opens one of the cabinets before pulling out a bottle of Barr Hill.

She straightens and— “What goes perfectly with a bit of vodka?”

And when she dug out a pack of playing cards from one of the drawers it had finally clicked.

After the first round of betting, he turns three cards face up in the middle of the table.

He shakes his head as Matt lets out a huff— poker face didn’t just mean facial expressions. After the last few hands, he understood why he so often lost at these kinds of games.

“You do know we can hear you right?” He asks as he studies his cards.

“It was a groan of relief,” he says. “Maybe what I needed was turned up.”

The Secretary lets out a laugh. “Believe me, he doesn’t have anything worth worrying over.”

She raises her glass to her lips and sips.

A smile twitches on his lips— she was definitely beginning to loosen up. He hoped it lasted.

“I think playing with a former spy should be illegal,” Matt pouts.

He watches as Nadine pushes skittles into the middle of the table, raising them four green.

“Want to hear about when else those old tricks come in handy?” The Secretary jokes. And then— “Tell you what, after this hand I’ll even point out some of your tells,” she says as she throws in the four green.

He shakes his head. “I don’t have any tells,” he says.

Her eyebrows raise. “Sure,” she mutters. “Your turn big boy.” She motions to the cards.

He watches on as Matt surveys the three cards laid out before looking back to his hand.

“Fold,” he says, tossing the two cards onto the table.

The Secretary smiles.

~MS~

The table erupts in laughter, but Nadine shushes them a moment later, reminding them to keep quiet— Daisy was asleep only a row over.

Nadine had just wiped the floor with Matt the last round, leaving him nearly empty handed.

He’s shuffling the deck when he hears, “Hey!”

It’s loud enough for Nadine to give out another warning.

He looks up and across the table.

“She took my chips,” he complains.

And the Secretary not only took his chips, but she was popping them into her mouth.

“The yellows are my favorite,” she says through a mouthful. She leans into him, and— “You were going to lose that hand anyways, trust me.”

A few hands, and a few bad decisions later, he’s out, leaving Nadine and Elizabeth.

He dealt while Matt observed, maybe, hopefully, learning a thing or two from watching them play.

He looks between the both of them, trying to read their non-expressions, their movements, their stares, but no luck.

And the cabin is quiet as they wait for Nadine to make her move. A minute or two later she slides ten red skittles into the middle.

His eyes flash to his boss.

She nods. “I’ll see your ten, and raise you five purples, and—” she shrugs her lips. “What the hell?” She says as she pushes in her entire pile.

Nadine cocks an eyebrow. “That confident?”

She smirks. “The real question is, are you?”

Nadine thinks for a moment before copying her and pushing in all of her candy pieces.

“All or nothing ladies,” Blake comments as he flips up the card at the top of the deck.

He lays it out in the middle before looking between the pair.

He squints his eyes, studying the Secretary, and when she meets his eyes— “She just made her straight,” he announces. He looks to Matt. “Guarantee it.”

“Flip ‘em,” Matt says. “Nothing else to bet.”

Nadine shows her hand first. “Three aces. Two eights. Full house,” she says, proudly.

His eyes dart across the table.

She hums, and— “Straight flush,” Elizabeth announces, laying down her cards.

“Jesus,” Matt snickers.

“I really didn’t think you had that,” Nadine comments.

She leans in. “I have to admit I was a little surprised that card got turned up,” she says, and just as she reaches a hand out to sweep the skittles back towards her, the plane shakes, and candy pieces go everywhere— into his lap; onto the floor; falling into the chair.

And he thinks the turbulence is just what they needed, the Secretary needed, when she had already been feeling a bit overwhelmed and out of control, but when the plane levels out, she doesn’t look the slightest bit unnerved— he thinks it's definitely thanks to the vodka.

“We need new chips,” Nadine says as she tosses a handful of the skittles that had fallen into her seat onto the table.

“We could always use clothing.”

When he shoots Matt a glare, he immediately turns to the Secretary, and says, “That was a joke ma’am.”

And he’s glad she laughs.

“Another time,” Nadine teases, yet he has a hard time telling the difference between teasing and her being serious, especially with a little bit of alcohol in her.

“Well—” The Secretary begins. She slaps a hand down against the table. “Count me out for that poker night.” She laughs as she stands to cross the cabin.

And when she goes, he leans into Nadine. “She looks better already,” he says. “This was a good idea.”

She raises her glass to her mouth and— “Yeah, well, she likes poker.” She shrugs as she gulps down the last bit of her drink.

“She only likes poker because she wins,” he points out.

“She has to be bluffing half the time, right?” Matt asks.

His remark gets ignored— he for one wasn’t going to give away the secrets that he _did_ know of, but he’s sure he didn’t know the half of her game.

“It feels good to win,” Nadine says. “And sometimes in this line of work you need to feel like you’re winning at something even if it’s as something silly as a card game because—” She sighs. “She lost big time today.”

And he wants to ask about her conversation with Russell Jackson, but his name is being called.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says as he stands and walks the few feet to where she is.

She’s holding back the curtain with one hand. “I’m going to rest my eyes for a little while,” she tells him. “Wake me in an hour?”

“Of course, Madam Secretary.”

He returns to his seat, silently thanking the senator that gifted her the bottle of Barr Hill, and whoever invented the game of poker. While she napped, he was more than ready for a bit of rest himself, and while he’d agreed to an hour of rest, he lets her sleep for almost the remainder of the flight, only waking her when they were an hour out.

And while he’s helping her get settled into the hotel, still being a bit more cautious of her mood, he finds it ironic that yet another crisis had been averted with just a bit of vodka.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank LittleSweetCheeks for this one


End file.
